Photoshop
Colour
Colour Picker
The colour picker is used to select foreground and background colours using either the HSB, RGB, L*a*b, or CMYK colour models. You can set up the colour picker to display only Web-safe colours, if you wish. By default, the Adobe Colour Picker is displayed in Photoshop, although you can change it to your system's colour picker or a third-party plug-in colour picker.
Opening the Colour Picker
To display the colour picker, do one of the following:
- Click on the foreground or background colour in the Toolbox.
- Click on the active selection box in the Colour panel.
Below is a thumbnail version of the Adobe Colour Picker. You can also view a labelled, full-sized version.
Here's a quick overview of the colour picker:
- The colour field (large square coloured window) and the colour slider (vertical window to the right of the colour field) provide a method of choosing colours using the mouse.
- You can enter numeric values in the HSB, RGB, L*a*b and CMYK fields to set up a colour.
- You can type a hexadecimal value into the field preceded by the # sign and you can also use it to copy hexadecimal codes to paste into other applications or HTML documents.
- The two rectangular colours arranged vertically are the new colour (top) and current/original colour (bottom).
Selecting Colours
Using Colour Field and Slider
The method we present here uses the more intuitive HSB colour model as the basis for selecting a colour.
- Make sure that the radio button beside H(ue) is selected.
- Drag a triangle beside the colour slider and move to a hue. Alternately, you can drag your cursor inside the colour slider.
- The colour field will display all variations of that hue. The most saturated colours will be on the right and the lightest ones will be on top. You can click or drag your cursor around inside the colour field to select a colour. The circular marker shows the position of the current colour. As you're changing colours, you'll notice that the values in the colour model fields are changing dynamically to always reflect values for the current colour.
- When you've created a colour you like, click the OK button to close the colour picker. This colour will appear as the new foreground or background colour.
Using Numeric Values
You can enter numeric values into the colour component fields for any of the four colour models. As you enter in values, the colour field and colour slider will update automatically. The acceptable range of values for each colour model is as follows:
- HSB
- Hue is expressed as an angle between 0 and 360 degrees. Saturation and Brightness are expressed as percentages.
- RGB
- Each value can range from 0-255.
- L*a*b
- The Luminance (lightness) value can be from 0-100. The a axis (green to magenta) and b axis (blue to yellow) ranges from -128 to +127.
- CMYK
- Each value is expressed as a percentage.
New Colour/Current Colour
The new colour rectangle updates dynamically as you change the colour values. Any time you want to return to the original colour and start over, simply click on the current colour rectangle.
Web-Safe Colours
To restrict your colour choices to web-safe colours, you can enable the Only Web Colours check box. The colour field and colour slider display will change as shown here.
If you're working without the Only Web Colours check box enabled, colours that aren't web-safe will cause an out-of-gamut alert to appear. As was the case in the Colour panel, you can click on the colour chip under the cube icon to snap the colour to the nearest web-safe colour.
Non-printable Colours
If a selected colour cannot be printed with CMYK inks, a triangular out-of-gamut alert will appear. The closest CMYK equivalent colour will be displayed underneath the alert icon. Click on the in-gamut colour to change to that colour. This is only relevant if you plan to print your graphics.
Custom Colour Systems
This has no application to web graphics but here is a brief explanation as to what the Custom button is for in the colour picker. There are a number of colour systems that professional printers and service bureaus use for printing. The designer can select colours from printed swatches provided by the ink manufacturer and be assured that the final printed output will match the swatch. Examples of colour systems are Pantone Matching System, Trumatch Swatching System and Focoltone Colour System.
The Custom button lets you choose colours from several custom colour systems.
Other Colour Pickers
Both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems have their own versions of colour pickers. There are plug-in colour pickers available too. If you would prefer to work with another colour picker, go to Edit > Preferences > General (Photoshop > Preferences > General). The Colour Picker pop-up menu will list all of the installed colour pickers on your system. Choose your preference and then click OK. Now, when you click on a foreground or background colour in the Toolbox or Colour panel, the colour picker of your choice will appear instead of the Adobe Colour Picker.
Colour Picker Summary
- The colour picker is used to select foreground and background colours.
- You can use the Adobe Colour Picker (default) or any other colour picker installed on your system. The colour picker can be changed in Edit > Preferences > General (Photoshop > Preferences > General).
- Colours can be selected by using the mouse in the colour field and colour slider.
- The colour picker provides numeric readouts for four colour models: HSB, RGB, L*a*b and CMYK. You can enter values into these fields to create colours.
- The hexadecimal field accepts hexadecimal code input and you can also copy the codes generated here and paste them into other applications or into HTML documents.
- If you want to restrict your colour choices to web-safe colours, enable the Only Web Colours check box in the colour picker.
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